After six days of competitive inshore and offshore racing within three classes, two new and one returning team have been crowned ORC World Champions at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court. These three teams demonstrated an exceptional level of preparation, practice and eventual execution to prevail after six days of intense inshore and offshore racing among the 43 entries with top-level sailors from throughout the United States and around the globe.

Two North American Champion titles have also been awarded among Maxi class yachts competing in their own series and the entries that were originally planning to compete in a Class C, but were folded into racing in Class B.

The final day of racing today was spectacular: 10 to 12 knots of northerly breeze in flat water and under sunny skies produced some of the closest inshore racing of the week, a fitting end to a highly competitive world championship regatta.

The new 2024 ORC Class 0 World Champions are those that raced on Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0. This team dominated this new class—first introduced to the ORC Championships this year—by winning five of seven races, enough to build an insurmountable 9-point lead overall. The silver medal position went to Peter Askew’s Botin 52 Wizard, and bronze to Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.

The Fox 2.0 team included Andy Horton, Harry West, Chris Hosking, Cooper Dressler, Dean Curtis, Graham Post, Jareese Finch, Kelvin Harrap, Maciel Cicchetti, Ignacio Postigo, Orrin Starr, Santiago Lange, Scott Nixon, Aidan Naughton and Lucas Chapman.

“This is Victor’s third TP52,” said Horton, tactician for Fox 2.0. “This boat was specifically built for the ORC Worlds in 2020, then Covid happened, yet we’ve always kept this regatta on the long-term planning and just slowly chipped away at the details that we’d need during this event. The right crew members, and the guys working on the boat have been endlessly trying to improve it.

“This includes things like the sails, which were sized for this regatta, and the different types of sails, like some specialty reaching sails we’ve been developing for two years. The boat mods and doing all of these other regattas were training with this bigger picture in mind, to come to the ORC worlds and do well.”

Yet things were not always easy nor perfect for Fox, such as during the first race of the event, the Long Offshore Race.

“We didn’t have the greatest start, and we were chasing all the other boats down,” Horton said. “And then on the big long run one of our halyards slipped and the wind instruments got chucked, so all of a sudden we were blind going into the night. Our sails were too flat for the breeze: we expected it to be windier, so we had our heavy-air main and a J2 that were the only upwind sails on the boat to keep the boat light. So, I knew for about 10 hours that we were gonna have a tough night.

“And you know, the guys sailed the pants off the boat. I mean, it was amazing to see everyone work so hard without wind gear. All night long, we challenged. We got back up to the front, and it got really light, and we fell back, and then we fought all the way to the finish and picked up a couple boats on the last 30-mile beat and ended up second. This was an outstanding effort by this team.”

Similarly, the new ORC Class A World Champion dominated their class through a similar long road taken to the top. Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 Interlodge IV managed to win all races but two among 19 rivals, the largest class in the event.

“Austin and I have been racing for about 20 years,” said Gwen Fragomen, “and I was on different positions on his boats, from foredeck on a J/24 to pit on a J/105 and then sewer on the Swan 42. Yet until recently I’d never been at the helm, and so this is really fabulous. It’s a bit daunting to be a world champion today.”

She explained this was a project that grew out of their TP52 program to give her an opportunity to drive her own boat.

“I think that we’re really fortunate because the team are super sailors,” she said. “I’m very passionate about ballet, and I think of them as being great choreographers. I mean, they execute brilliantly. So, I really give credit to the team and to Tony [Rey] as the tactician. It was really a great performance, better than Swan Lake.”

Besides Rey the other choreographers on board Interlodge were Kris Matthews, Nick Ford, Adam Minter, Carlos Robles, Tom O’Donnell, Christian Kamp, Norman Berge, Hartwell Jordan, Jay Davis, and Brad Marsh.

Second in Class A were Don Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 Abracadabra, and third was Henry Brauer’s Club Swan 42 Tio Loco.

 The road taken by the Class B ORC World Champions was literally the longest of any team at this event – from Poland to Baltimore by ship, then to Newport – but was also nearly three years in the planning and execution and had the experience taken from winning their class in two prior ORC World Championships in Sardinia in 2022 and last year in Germany.

Victory was only assured by Marcin Sutkowski on his Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44 after ensuring that their runner-up rival—John Brim’s Italia 11.98, Rima98—could not finish today’s final race with a score lower than the 2.5-point lead Wind Whisper had going into today. So, the two match-raced the course, which drove both back far enough to use their discards yet retaining their top two places in the final results. Third was Bill and Jackie Baxter’s J/111 Fireball.

“This was a fantastic event, I’m really glad we came to defend our title,” said Sutkowski. “We have a mix of pros and young sailors on this team, so we are building and learning all the time. We are looking at keeping the boat here in the U.S. this winter and doing some more ORC racing. Next year I hope to have a new Class A boat ready for next year’s championships.”

The remainder of the Wind Whisper 44 team included Joan Navarro, Aksel Magdahl, Hugo Rocha, Stanisław Bajerski, Kacper Gwóźdź, Mateusz Gwóźdź, and Piotr Przybylski.

Meanwhile the Maxis took advantage of great racing conditions today by having another two inshore races, with wins in each by Hap Fauth’s Maxi 72 Bella Mente and Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 Vesper, which emerged victorious after nine races to win the ORC Maxi North American Championship title.

The ORC Class C North American title was won by Jeremy Alexis’s Melges 32 Fleetwood, and NEKA Sailing’s modified J/105 Sleeper won the Class B all-amateur Corinthian Trophy. The Class A Corinthian Trophy was won by Bob Manchester’s J/133 Vamoose.

“We congratulate all the winners and podium finishers at this World Championship,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. “The New York Yacht Club race managers working with our team did a fantastic job this week of providing fair and competitive race courses. The racing for everyone was always close, and we hope to see some of you join us for next year’s ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia.”

The post ORC World Champions Crowned After Long Series appeared first on Sailing World.

Paul Sevigny is on a mission. He wants to slay giants and, along the way, revolutionize the handicap racing scene in America. How’s he going to do that? Win a world championship in a sporty 26-footer, taking down the most expensive and best-prepared ­racing machines around. The arena for this sailing battle of the ages will be Rhode Island Sound, venue for New York YC’s 2020 ORC/IRC World Championships in early October.

He will be stepping onto the battlefield not only for himself and his teammates from Noroton, Connecticut, but also for the good of the common beer-can racing sailor. Should he emerge victorious, he hopes to inspire local handicap racing teams to step up and travel to race weeks, as many big-boat teams did 20 to 30 years ago before the proliferation of smaller, turnkey one-design classes that live on trailers.

I once thought he was nuts. But then I sailed with him.

“You can race with the big boys for a fraction of the cost with a small sporty boat,” Sevigny says. He bought his GP26 Smokeshow in spring 2019. “A [used] $14,000 Melges 24 might not be competitive in one-design. But in PHRF or ORC, you might have yourself quite a rocket ship.”

He reasons that adding crew and new sails, and optimizing the design for handicap racing, are simple upgrades. “When your boat costs less than most top guy’s mainsails, you have a little change left to try things. And now you can race against big teams. Isn’t that wonderful?”

I fall under Sevigny’s spell in fall 2019, during the daylong Denmark Race on Long Island Sound. When I first meet him, the boat is under the hoist at Noroton YC, surrounded by a monolithic fleet of Sonars. It looks like a miniature TP52, all tricked out with control lines and high-tech sails. We cram six sailors into a cockpit that is no bigger than a solo sailor’s Mini, and over the course of a breezy afternoon—pulling plenty of power from the boat’s asymmetric spinnakers and code sails—we hoot and plane to second overall, ahead of several 45-footers.

Though the experience is fun, I don’t see a GP26 future in my career, until Sevigny bends my ear about his goal to win the ORC/IRC World Championship. Now I’m listening.

Over dinner on a frigid November night in Newport, Sevigny is determined to get me on board with his plan. He has printed a schedule of handicap events up and down the East Coast.

“So, which ones should we do? Who should we get?” he asks, ­serious as an undertaker.

I love it when someone takes fun sailing this seriously. After ­dinner, I drop him off at a house down the street, and we agree to follow up soon.

The next morning, I notice a perfectly positioned, simple ­little black-and-white bumper sticker on my truck’s tailgate: “SMOKESHOW USA 2609.” I’d been tagged. This guy is into it. I’m in.

“We weren’t sure they would let us in,” Sevigny says about the entry application submitted to the regatta’s organizers, but they “made a change” to allow his boat type. “It’s extremely important to me because there’s probably never going to be another chance to sail in an ORC world championship for less money.”

The last time the New York YC held a handicap rule world championship was in 2000, the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championships. But the IMS rule—and that event—was short-lived. The first combined ORC/IRC Worlds was in 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey, with 85 boats. It’s going to be a long time before this championship returns to North America, so Sevigny’s view is it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At the combined ORC/IRC Worlds, there is not one world title at stake, but rather three: in classes A, B and C. Smokeshow sits ­comfortably in Class C as the smallest entry—by many feet.

Smokeshow’s Denmark Race performance may very well have been an anomaly, so before I fully commit, I have to see what this show can do, one more time.

A few months later, I fly to Miami for the Wirth Munroe Palm Beach Race, which is part of the new SORC Islands in the Stream series. I’m interested to see how Smokeshow fairs against a few high-power, big-boat teams.

The boats around us at the marina in Florida are twice the size and overflowing with professionals, dollar bills practically spilling from their sail bags. For this race, Sevigny has splurged too, hiring a boat captain to deliver the boat to Florida and rig it. To help tune the boat and demonstrate to the crew the effort required to win a world championship, he’s also hired Chris Larson, the highly ­experienced professional sailor from Annapolis, Maryland.

Before the race start, as we all fiddle with ring dings, electrical tape and tension gauges, a veritable black cat crosses our bow: a massive black RIB crammed with nearly a dozen pro sailors in black attire. These are the rock stars of Interlodge VI, the Botin 44 of Gwen and Austin Fragomen. As they putter past, they stare at us, like we’re the kids who show up to the basketball court in Keds when everyone else is sporting Air Jordans.

The forecast is showing lighter breeze. That’s good for Smokeshow. Larson and Sevigny agree that our sweet spot is in 8 to 10 knots, when we can nimbly get up on plane reaching while the big racers like Interlodge stay stuck to the water.

Larson has the forecast analyzed for the 50-mile race up the east coast of Florida. A light northerly is supposed to clock to the right slowly, before filling in offshore for a beam reach to the finish and the world-famous buffet of Palm Beach’s distinguished Sailfish Club.

In the early hours of the race, the light and long port tack put Interlodge and the 60-footer Prospector on the horizon in no time. But Larson’s shift soon comes, and when we tack to starboard, our Code Zero spins out of the furler. All six of us put every wet pound of our bodies outboard and aft as the boat lights up and skims across the sea.

“See ya!,” Larson yells to a Melges 32 team as we blaze past. Then, he starts cracking the whip on Smokeshow. “Head up, get some power, but don’t lose it,” he commands Sevigny. He speaks with a clear and casual cadence. “Get up on the step. OK, now we’re off.”

Soon, the big boats are more defined on the horizon, so we know we’ve made a leap. We transition through our quiver of reaching and running sails until we settle into the big A1. We streak past President Trump’s sprawling Mar-a-Lago resort at 9 knots, leaning in and out, and hiking it down like a dinghy. When we finish at sunset, we’re sure we’ve done well.

We win our class and ORC overall, beating Interlodge by 13 ­minutes on corrected time.

Maybe Sevigny is on to something.

He dons a double-breasted jacket and tie to receive his ­crystal trophy. He likes to wear the uniform, and he’s nostalgic about big‑boat racing.

As a kid, he watched in envy as boats like the deep-orange Admiral’s Cup yacht Runaway sailed in and out of his club. His parents weren’t members though. His entree was as a junior sailing member, and even then, he was an outsider.

He’s a big fan of the colorful IOR era of the 1980s, and even ­collects vintage crew polo shirts, especially from the maxis Obsession and Boomerang.

He has his own collection of Smokeshow gear for each event. Maybe someday someone will want to collect his.

“As I grew older, I felt like the sport was passing me by,” Sevigny says. “I needed to reboot myself and get up to date.” His para­meters for a racing boat were simple: modern and spirited, with all the latest control systems and sails, and it must fit under Noroton YC’s hoist. The GP26 fit the bill.

“I sailed one-design my whole life,” Sevigny says of his move to handicap racing. “There’s a lot more to learn when you’re not just using a sailmaker’s tuning guide.”

Sailing regularly in Noroton’s summer evening races, he recruits junior sailors and members, anyone looking to go fast. “There are not enough modern boats,” he says. “I want them to look at us and have that ‘hello tomorrow’ moment.”

There’s something contagious about Sevigny’s approach. The notion of elevating a seemingly modest production boat and its team to a level of world-champion contender is exciting. The challenge now is convincing and recruiting others to give the worlds a shot.

“This is just about a once-in-a-lifetime event for most sailors,” says Patty Young, event chair for the worlds. “Many people are on the fence, whether they should be racing one-design, but they are thinking about this.”

Young says the biggest leap of faith for unfamiliar PHRF teams is obtaining an ORC or IRC certificate, which comes at a cost. The races in 2018 and in 2020 are scored with a combination of both rules. IRC is a single-number rule, while ORC is a more precise, ­scientific-based rule with velocity prediction inputs and three wind strengths applied. Any boats with ORR certificates will have an ­easier time completing their certificate, she says.

Sevigny says the precision of ORC makes it possible for any boat to compete on a more level playing field than ever before. He’s a believer. With some early victories and a string of regattas lined up on the boat’s schedule, Sevigny hopes that Smokeshow, diminutive as it might be, is the right boat to win his first world championship.

“It’s considerably more rewarding being one of the smallest boats in the fleet,” he says. “For us, everything is a win. I like being the underdog.”

The post Little Boat, Big Stage appeared first on Sailing World.

The new World Champions in each class were surprises as well, none having been at the top of the leader-board all week during the six-day format of inshore and offshore racing.

Race managers led by PRO Giancarlo Crevatin made a bold decision to hold as many races as the light air conditions would allow today, which was two on one course area and only one on another.

This meant Classes A and C had two races to determine the podium finishers, while Class B had only one race…at least this would get to the seven needed to trigger a discard.

In Class A the first race was won by Sandro Paniccia’s Scuderia 50 Altair 3, repeating their race win yesterday.

The early series leader – Maurizio Poser’s Swan 42 Sheraa – went off on the wrong side of the course in this race and thus had a mediocre result, putting them in a difficult position to retake the series lead and win Gold in the final race since there were too many other contenders too close in points.

The points compression was made worse by having discards kick in which brought the big fast boats into contention. Besides, being one of the slowest rated boats in that class they could not tactically control any of these larger faster boats.

Sheraa did what they could do by winning the final race, but the big boats scoring 2, 3 and 4 this brought their totals into within 3 points among the top four teams.

Fortunately for Sheraa that last race win allowed them to win the tie break with Altair and keep them on the podium in the Bronze position.

So on the strength of one race win and consistency with no finish worse that 4th place, Vincenzo Onerato and his Mascalzone Latino team racing his Cookson 50 have won the ORC World Championship for Class A, with last year’s winner – Vadim Yakimenko’s Russo-French team on Freccia Rossa – earning Silver medals. On Onerato’s team were numerous top Italian sailors, including Andrea Ballico, Lorenzo Bressani, Leonardo Chiarugi, Stefano Ciampalini, Francesco Mongelli, Davide Scarpa, and Matteo Sivelli.

In Class B the leader through most of the week was Diego Zanco’s Croatian team on his X-41 Nube, and a discard of their 16th place in the second offshore race looked like it would keep them on top with a reasonable result in the last race.

But disaster struck: a 17th place in the race made them keep their 16th and take them out of contention for a podium finish.

Meanwhile a team that had never been in the top ranks due to a 38th place in the second offshore race but had been quietly collecting excellent scores of 2-1-1-2 in the inshore races, and a final 1st place in the last race, was now vaulted to the top with the discard.

Renzo Grotessi’s Swan 42 Be Wild and his CSQ2 Sailing Team are the new ORC World Champions in Class B. This team consists of Luigi Masturzo, Lorenzo Cantarini, Andrea Casale, Riccardo Cesini, Giuseppe Filippis, Gian, Luca Gennaro, Sandro Iesari, Aris Leandri, Nikolaos Mascoli, and Roberto Pellegrini.

Winning silver medals in Class B was Massimo De Campo’s Swan 42 Selene Alifax, and inning Bronze medals was Nadia Canalez’s M45 Horus Tempus Fugit.

Class C was similar to Class A, with many contenders, some large point discards and two races to determine the ultimate champions. At the beginning of the week in the offshore races some perennial and proven favorites at past ORC Championship events looked strong, but as the inshore racing progressed other teams started rising to the top, and with some heavy point discards waiting until Race 7, these teams were poised to pounce today.

The team that not only rose quickly to the top but also eliminated any doubt by winning both of today’s races was Cesare Bressan’s modified Melges 32 Airis, the new ORC World Champions in Class C.

This team has been on the podium at previous World Championships, namely being Bronze medal winners in 2012 in Helsinki sailing their GP 42 of the same name, but this is the first time they have been able to claim the top prize.

Sailing on Airis with Bressan this week was helmsman Roberto Monti, Diogo Cayolla, Michele Gregoratto, Victor Marino, Glauco Turco Albatros, and Vittorio Zaoli.

Silver medalists in Class C were the Loro Piana brothers Giacomo and Franco on their Farr 30 Sease, and winning Bronze medals was the team on Alessio Querin’s Farr 30 Mummy One-Lab Met.

All-amateur teams at this event qualified for Corinthian class trophies, and the top in Class A was in 9th place overall: Danilo Falzitti’s TP 52 Zerocould. In Class B the Corinthian winner was 9th placed Ermanno Galeati’s Grand Soleil 43R Reve de Vie, and in Class C it was 4th place finisher Andrea Bazzini’s X-35 Extrema.

“This was a tough championship, with many potential winners,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi.

“No one clearly dominated any one phase of the competition, and not knowing the winners until the last race is proof how demanding this was.

“There was also a wide diversity of boat types here, with many of these on the final podium, so we are pleased at how well the rule seems to be working in producing fair racing among this variety of boats. We applaud all the participants, thank the organization for the outstanding efforts they made all week to produce an excellent event, and congratulate all the winners for their high achievements.”

More info including live-streaming from the race courses, tracking from TracTrac, photos, videos and more at www.orcworlds2017.com.

The post ORC World Champions Crowned appeared first on Sailing World.

In the ’70s and ’80s, if you were keen to race your cruising boat, PHRF was the handicap rule of choice. For furniture-laden production boats saddled with performance compromises, PHRF was an easy gateway into competitive sailing. There were also designers and custom builders devising faster and leaner boats for owners wanting to compete at a higher level. IOR was their racing fleet. It was a technical rule, used internationally, which allowed owners to compete on the world stage. In the heydays, top IOR teams had global respect. This two-tiered rating rule hierarchy essentially remains the model in most countries today: There’s a gateway rule and a technical rule. Not so in the United States.

While PHRF serves the vast majority of local handicap racers, American owners now have a shopping list of more-­technical options — IRC, ORC and ORR — none of which are compelling enough to outwit the other. Having too many options is negatively impacting participation. Handicap fleets need tiers of competition, providing a ladder for owners and teams to climb and find their appropriate level. Local, regional, national, and international steps create inspiration and motivation. A unified rule fosters confidence with ­owners and provides direction to designers and builders, encouraging them to invest in the development of new boats and equipment. I see this in other countries where there’s a commitment to a technical rule, but not so much in the United States. Without a compelling reason to invest in racing programs, we instead see older boats with handy age allowances focused on local and regional sailing.

Lacking high-level big-boat handicap racing, many of these same people have joined smaller keelboat one-design fleets, bringing their grand-prix budgets into the Corinthian realm. My dad had boats in the 25-foot range, contending he could race at a high level without being outspent. Today, he says, that wouldn’t be the case. With fleet numbers in decline since the 1980s, PHRF has become the catch-all. “We have seen some drop at the top end but a significant drop in participation in recent years of the midlevel racers,” says Bruce Bingham, chair of the U.S. PHRF Committee. “We know boats are still out there because owners dutifully get certificates each year, but maybe race one or two of their favorite regattas instead of all season long.” Bingham says the lack of a uniformly accepted high-level measurement rule is negative impacting PHRF. “It is too much to ask of PHRF to support a mixed fleet across all skill levels in the same class,” says Bingham. “PHRF was never intended to rate the top end of the fleet where thousands of dollars (or more) are spent to gain a few seconds per mile.”

To help bridge the rating rules, the idea was born for a universal measurement system, which would allow a boat to be measured once. A boat’s measurement data could be applied across all technical rating rules. Implementation of the UMS took some doing, as IRC, ORC and ORR each have unique measurement protocols. The advantage of UMS, however, is that a boat measured in England, where IRC is most prevalent, could now readily compete in the Mediterranean, where ORC is prominent. I’m not convinced UMS is progress for the United States. Each rating rule is complicated, and people like familiarity. As long as all three rules remain on the table, owners will advocate for what is better for their boat. UMS is a good solution for an international problem, but I fear it will only hasten the headway we really need, which is toward a unified national rule.

Dual scoring is another attempt to encourage participation, offering multiple options for entry so owners enjoy their preferred rule. The practice of entering a race under more than one rule, however, often leads to inconsistent results. Winners under one rule often find themselves down the ranks in another, scattering the spotlight and turning trophies into participation awards. Is there a sensible reason for the existence of three technical rules?

“That is a tough question,” says Bjorn R. Johnson, executive director of Offshore Racing Association, which owns and manages ORR. “It all depends from where you sit in the grand scheme of things. Having raced and campaigned many of my own boats, I have seen the diversity of the rating systems firsthand. In the States, we have a capitalist economy and that allows us to have choices and make our own decisions.”

James Dadd, director of the RORC Rating Office for IRC, is succinct: “No one needs lots of rating rules. Racing should be about getting out there, enjoying yourself and chatting at the bar about what you got right or wrong, and not about the rule.” ORC, the latest rule to the menu, arrived in the United States by invitation, says Dobbs Davis, Communications Director for ORC. “There are fleets dissatisfied with other options for many reasons, whether it’s being too subjective, not responsive enough to measurement and certification, not transparent in process or development, not confident of the accuracy of the ratings, too expensive, et cetera.”

Each rule makes a compelling case. IRC, which is managed by British and French authorities, is the widest geographically spread rating rule recognized by World Sailing. “Looking at the results we see around the world, I would suggest it works well as both an inshore rule and an offshore rule,” says Dadd. “Notably, it’s the principle system used in every offshore race around the world outside the United States.”

ORC, headquartered in Italy, has had the benefit of being the designated rule with a world championship. “ORC championship events such as the Worlds, Europeans and Sportboat ­Europeans continue to attract record entries,” says Davis, noting the rule’s usage in more than 40 countries. “There were 131 at the Worlds, 78 at the Europeans, and 40 at the Sportboats. Bids for these events extend out as far as 2020, demonstrating a strong demand.”

What IRC and ORC have are numbers. Participation ensures these rules are self-sustaining and able to invest in the technical tools needed to effectively rate boats. As international rules, U.S. boats can readily compete abroad, but perhaps more important, they allow foreign teams to compete in the States. Quantum Key West Race Week, for example, sees its use of ORC as a means to encourage international entrants.

ORR, on the other hand, has yet to cast its net beyond North American waters. This has limited overall participation, and while the sale of their products and agreements represents the major parts of the business model and provides general financial support, the rule does look for interested donors or sponsors to fund research and development and for educational projects.

ORR’s strength stems from its founding clubs — the Chicago YC, the Cruising Club of America and the Transpacific YC — which joined forces in an effort that led to the development and administration of the rule. These clubs use ORR in their signature events — ­Chicago Mackinac Race, Newport Bermuda Race and Transpac Race — which have fostered growth in those regions.

“ORR now extends far beyond the events of its founders with its use in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda,” says ­Johnson. “The events are as varied and diverse as the competitors themselves, and while ORR is known for being used primarily in offshore events, it works equally well for inshore racing.”

US Sailing is neutral, thus the health of the sport now teeters within the self-­interest of the respective rule proponents. Each rule operates differently, which contributes to the chasm. While they each assemble dissimilar boats for competition, they cannot continue to coexist without ­deteriorating U.S. fleets.

For increased participation, we need a clean model. PHRF must be exclusive to racer-cruisers — the big kids have to get out of their sandbox. A consensus technical rule provides the necessary division to promote growth, and this accord will occur only when prominent clubs and event hosts look beyond themselves and work together for the good of the sport.

The post The Handicap Racing Question appeared first on Sailing World.

The Offshore World Championship 2018 will take place in the Hague, specifically from the port of Scheveningen, in July 2018. An innovative solution will be used for the first time to unite the two largest offshore racing fleets.

London and Milan — Baltic, North Sea, Mediterreanean, Atlantic and English Channel-based yachts along with rated offshore racing boats based everywhere else in the world, will have the chance to compete for the ‘best in the world title’ in a World Sailing-sanctioned offshore World Championship.

Racing using a handicap or rating system is a way for yachts of different size, shape, age and performance profiles to compete together equitably on the same race course at the same time. There are many handicap and rating systems in use around the world but the two most successful in terms of numbers of subscribers are ORC and IRC. Together the two have rated over 15,000 boats in over 50 countries worldwide in 2016.

There have been World Championships run since 1999 for yachts handicapped under the Offshore Racing Congress’ IMS and ORCi rating systems, while for the first time since being sanctioned as an International Rating system by World Sailing in 2003, IRC scoring will be used in a World Championship.

A pragmatic and innovative solution now opens the door to allow an offshore fleet derived from ORCi and IRC-rated boats to assemble and compete for their discipline’s ultimate title, ‘World Champion’. By using a combined scoring system, this combined fleet will, in 2018, be able to compete on the water against each other for the first time using both systems.

The compromise reached at the sport’s international federation (World Sailing) conference in Barcelona last November calls for each boat entering the world championship to have a measurement certificate from each of the two systems, ORCi and IRC. ORC had previously approved the proposal bid from organizers from The Hague to be hosts for the World Championship based on the ORC’s standard week-long championship format, however the details of format and scoring will be re-examined by a Working Party formed from IRC and ORC to examine the options.

Stan Honey, chairman of World Sailing’s Oceanic and Offshore Committee said, “It was really important to come up with a solution to find a way for the two most important fleets of offshore yachts to compete for a world title. By using both systems conjointly for the event’s scoring neither group is compromised and both groups benefit from the dual system solution that we agreed upon in Barcelona last month. I’m looking forward to the return on experience from this event in 2018. I’m sure it will be a popular and successful event.”

Based on the experience from this exciting new cooperation between these two systems, further evolutions and convergence are envisaged in the future.

Marcel Schuttelaar, Chairman of The Hague Offshore Sailing World Championship 2018, “We are extremely pleased that the two major rating systems of the world are agreeing to make our event a pioneer in future cooperation for the World Championship. Our venue location is ideally suited to attract a strong turnout from both cultures, so we look forward to working closely with ORC and IRC on building the framework for a successful championship event.”

The post ORC and IRC Unite at World Championship appeared first on Sailing World.

The backbone of the Quantum Key West Race Week fleet lies in the competitive racing offered in the one-design classes that comprise over 70% of the 130 teams from 10 countries entered in this event. However, the other 30% entered in the IRC and ORC classes race just as hard in their fight for a place on the podium.

When the Storm Trysail Club (STC) took over management of Quantum Key West Race Week earlier this year it had some difficult decisions to make on which rating systems to use to accommodate this important segment of the fleet. In particular, STC wanted to try to halt the declining participation levels among the PHRF sailors in this fleet, who many years ago were the mainstay of the event.

So in an attempt to inject new life into Key West and attract a new crop of entries, race organizers at STC decided to replace PHRF with the ORC rating system, a measurement-based scientific system in use in over 40 countries around the world and that has issued more than 10,000 certificates for its use in 2015.

Race committee chairman Dick Neville was pleased with the initial response to that significant change, and Quantum Key West 2016 will have two healthy ORC classes competing on the Division 3 course this Monday through Friday.

“We’re pleased that a good number of owners have decided to give ORC a try and we’re hopeful they will have a good experience this week,” Neville said. “I think if the teams here like the way the system works and believe it produces fair racing, word will spread and we’ll get more boats racing ORC next year.”

ORC 1 features a slightly wider rating band with a pair of J/122 sloops as the scratch entries. Robin Team (Lexington, NC) is a seasoned veteran of Key West and has done quite well over the years aboard his various boats named Teamwork. Paul Milo (Annapolis, MD) is doing the regatta for the first time, but has enjoyed much success on the Chesapeake Bay and beyond aboard his J/122 Orion.

“We have mixed it up with Orion at other regattas and we know that boat is very well-sailed,” Team said. “I’m sure there will be times when it seems like we are match racing with Orion.”

North Sails’ Jonathan Bartlett (Annapolis, MD) will once again be calling tactics for Team, who has his brother and two sons aboard as regular crew. On board Orion is another Annapolitan, Tad Hutchins of Quantum Sails, who helps manage the Orion program with yet another Annapolitan, perennial J/24 champion Mark Hillman, handling tactics.

A trio of 32-footers and pair of 33-footers comprise the remainder of the class and will likely mix it up amongst each other separate from the two 40-footers. Ben Hall (Tiverton, RI) of Hall Spars skippers Bluto, an Evelyn 32 he modified that figures to be quite competitive.

“It’s a nice mix of boats and it will be interesting to see how things shake out,” Team said. “Part of the fun of handicap racing is that you get out there with no idea of how the boats stack up against each other. I think we will have tough competition and I think it will be fair competition.”

At nine entries, the ORC 2 class is the largest handicap class at the event, yet has less diversity in boat types since all are Sportboats. Except for Henry DeGroot’s J/80 Wired (Newton, MA), all are relatively new designs to the US racing scene. The GP 26’s are all designed by Jim Donovan and have been built in Turkey at Wraceboats, but have varied sail plans and therefore different ratings, whereas the Farr 280’s are in one design trim and rate the same.

“Based on the certificate it looks like we’re a little faster (than the GP 26),” said Tate Russack of Boca Ration, FL, and is skipper of the Farr 280 Diesel. “I think it’s going to be fun racing. I see a lot of separation in the class, but we’ll find out for sure on Monday.”

Quantum Key West has always been a proving ground for new designs and the GP 26 will look to make an impression this week. Peter D’arista (California, MD) liked the boat so much he bought two hulls, one of which he is chartering to John and Linda Edwards, who are also from Southern Maryland. Mike Beasley (Annapolis, MD) is skippering the other GP 26 and even though this is first time in a GP 26, he too is looking forward to having this opportunity to stack up against the GP’s but the 280’s as well.

“I’ve heard a lot about these boats and how fast they are, so it will be great to get into the racing and learn more and more and go faster and faster,” he said.

“This is the first time we’ll have three boats sailing side-by-side so we should all learn a lot this week,” said Donovan, noting that all three boats are configured for Chesapeake Bay conditions and there was no time to make modifications for the often breezier conditions in Key West.

The GP 26 weighs 2,200 pounds empty and has a massive sail plan tamed by a 1000 pound bulb keel, a huge factor in keeping the boat in control. “An average sailor can hop on this machine and learn how to sail it,” says Donavan. “It’s high performance, but not high risk. I’m really pleased with everything about the boat.”

Also mixed in is Eagle’s Eye, a Fareast 28R skippered by Matt Wake (West Yarmouth, MA), who has a young crew of junior sailors from the St Petersburg, FL area and therefore will qualify for the newly-established Sailing World Trophy. That new award will be presented to the top performing boat in any class whose average age is less than 30 years old.

At the other end of the size scale and on the Division 1 course will be where sailors and spectators alike will be awed by the size and power of the four Maxi 72-footers competing in the IRC 0 Class. Bella Mente, skippered by Hap Fauth of Minneapolis, MN, is the reigning World Champion in the Maxi 72 class and bears the label of pre-regatta favorite as a result.

Two-time Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Terry Hutchinson (Harwood, MD) will call tactics for Fauth, himself a nominee for that prestigious honor due to his success on the Maxi 72 circuit in 2015.

“Bella Mente is definitely the boat to beat based off its recent past and because it knows the race area here in Key West better than the other three,” said Rob Weiland (Amsterdam, NL), manager of the Maxi 72 class.

However, Weiland emphasized that it’s a new season and said many of the Maxi 72’s have undergone modifications since the world championships. For example, Caol Ila R, skippered by Alex Schaerer of Malta, has a new rig replacing that broken last year in Sardinia, and has also extended its keel to the maximum length of 18 feet. Other boats have gone with longer bow sprits or changed weight configurations.

“Proteus is a more powerful boat and could do well when the breeze is on,” Weiland said of the entry skippered by George Sakellaris of Framingham, MA.

A fully professional crew of 20 is required to get the majestic Maxi 72-footers around the race course. Top-level talent is also needed aboard the three TP52 designs competing in the IRC 1 Class. Doug DeVos (Ada, MI) returns to skipper Quantum Racing, title sponsor of the regatta. DeVos steered Quantum to victory in 52 class at the 2014 edition of Key West.

Steve Benjamin (Norwalk, CT), who last week was crowned as the 2015 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, is starting a busy season of racing Spookie – a Botin-designed TP52 he bought in May with his wife Heidi Benjamin. The Benjamins got his feet wet in the class by doing two events on the 52SuperSeries circuit and is keen to fine-tune his team.

Following Key West, Spookie is slated to do the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Caribbean 600 and then various regattas in St. Thomas, British Virgin Islands and St. Barth’s before returning north for the biennial Newport-to-Bermuda Race.

“What a thoroughbred this boat is,” Benjamin marveled. “We are still learning the finer points of sailing the boat, but I certainly expect to be competitive. We know Quantum Racing is plenty fast and Interlodge is a great rating boat. I expect to have darn good racing.”

Interlodge is a Botin 44 owned by Austin and Gwen Fragomen (Newport, RI) that has won just about every regatta it has entered since being launched last June. It was also designed by Botin and has a design largely based off Quantum Racing.

“It’s a very similar design and looks a lot like a smaller version of that boat,” Interlodge tactician Andy Horton said.

Interlodge won the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta, Block Island Race Week and, most recently, the Annapolis Fall Regatta, all in IRC scoring. “It’s an awesome boat – the best boat of that size I’ve ever sailed on,” Horton said. “It’s really quick downwind and doesn’t suffer going upwind.”

Quantum Racing is scratch entry in IRC 1 and in a one-hour race would owe Interlodge about five minutes. Horton is hoping the three TP52s mix it up among themselves and ignore Interlodge.

“They are definitely faster upwind, but we accelerate pretty well against them downwind. We can’t lose too much ground on the first windward leg and try to make our gains going downwind,” he said.

IRC 2 is comprised of five boats ranging from 39 to 43 feet. Christopher Dragon, a Sydney 43 owned by Andrew and Linda Weiss (Mamaroneck, NY) is the fastest boat in the class by a slim margin with a 1.194 rating. Tschuss, a brand new Mills-designed and Turkish-built MAT 1180 skippered by Irishman Christian Zugel, rates 1.190.

“We’re excited because this is the closest rating band we’ve had in a while at Key West,” Weiss said. “We’ve been racing against the Mills 43 Cool Breeze (John Cooper, Cane Hill, MO) for three years here so we are very familiar with them. We’ll have to figure out how we compare with the other boats as the week goes along.”

This will be the fifth time Weiss has sailed his own boat in Key West with the best result being a third in the IRC 3 class at the 2008 edition. He brought his Sydney 43 Christopher Dragon to the Conch Republic in November and the crew has put in considerable practice.

“We’ve worked very hard to improve our performance. We’re looking to go a little better upwind,” he said. “Hopefully, the results will reflect the effort we’ve put in.”

New to Quantum Key West this year is a Performance Cruising class with four entries sailing distance races around government marks. Principal Race Officer Bruce Bingman anticipates plotting courses that will take two to three hours to complete with the fleet pushing out toward the reef.

Multihulls have returned to Key West Race Week following a lengthy hiatus with a Gunboat 60 (Arethusa, Phil Lotz, Fort Lauderdale) and a Corsair 28 (Flight Simulator, Tom Reese, Youngstown, NY) joining the Performance Cruising fleet on the navigational courses.

Racing starts tomorrow of all classes, with the first race signals starting at 11:30 AM. Two races are planned, followed by afternoon seminars and nightly awards planned at the main event venue at Kelly’s Caribbean.

For more information the classes racing at Quantum Key West Race Week, visit www.keywestraceweek.com.

The post Key West Race Week Kicks Off appeared first on Sailing World.

Racing yachts this large requires special skills, not only for the crews that wrestle thousands of square feet of sail area, but also for the tacticians and helmsmen, who have specific right-of-way rules to avoid collisions among these unwieldy craft The boats are manned by the new and old guard of the America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, and other big grand-prix programs. Their sail handling skills and experience are required in this increasingly competitive scene.

And there are other special skills needed in providing fair and fun racing appropriate to these monstrosities. For example, races are run with individual start times to keep everyone separated and sailing in clear air, so the handicapping system has to be effective across an enormous range of sizes and styles of yachts. A typical Superyacht fleet includes schooners, sloops, and ketches of varying lengths and with displacements ranging from 50 to 600 tons. This huge disparity in yacht type, size, and shape is exceptionally difficult to handicap, so last year the Super Yacht Racing Association partnered with the Offshore Racing Congress to tackle the problem, and came out with the ORC Superyacht Rule, aka ORCsy.

Most rating rules work by determining the performance potential through measurements of the speed-producing (and speed-inhibiting) elements of the design. These include length, sail area, displacement, draft, stability, etc. The ORC has developed a sophisticated Velocity Prediction Program to predict this potential and uses it to provide ratings more than 9,000 boats in 40 countries.

But the VPP used for typical racers and crossovers had to be modified to suit Superyachts, so designer Jim Taylor and race director Peter Craig from SYRA worked with Andy Claughton from the Wolfson Unit at Univ. of Southampton and ORC to take into account features unique to Superyachts, such as radar dome dimensions, superstructures windage, tankage capacity, furling headsails and whether they had to be furled when tacking. The system had to then be programmed for online data input, a process devised for review of that data, and then certificates issued online. For transparency, of course, it had to be made accessible to all.

After months of work, and no less than 38 versions of the rule, the results in these first two events were encouraging: races were being won and lost in seconds rather than minutes, keeping owners, crews, and tacticians excited throughout each race.

America’s Cup winner Peter Holmberg, racing on the 125-foot Perini Navi sloop P2, said, “The three of us (Visione, Inoui, P2) have been neck-and-neck at the finish. There are a few outliers that need some help and fixing, but the heart of it is working very well.”

Volvo Ocean Race winner Moose Sanderson, with the 153-foot Huisman-built ketch Elfje, said, “Before, it was a performance-based rule, where if you do well today, tomorrow you won’t do so well. Now it’s a measurement-based rule so the only variables are how well you’ve prepared it, how good your sails are, and how good your crew is . . . you should be able to win no matter which boat you’ve got, and that’s a really cool thing.”

The system is “going to be brilliant,” he adds. “It’s going to take superyacht racing from being pure entertainment to something where we can compete properly and know how to change things each year to perform better.”

Saint Barth Bucket Regatta 2015

Saint Barth Bucket Regatta 2015

The post Big Boats, Big Data appeared first on Sailing World.